BOSTON (Reuters) - A river swollen by heavy rain and
melting snow overflowed its banks along the U.S.-Canadian
border, forcing hundreds of people to flee homes and businesses
in Fort Kent, Maine, and closing two border crossings.

The St. John River rose 30 feet and spilled into the town
leaving stores and homes on Main Street under seven to eight
feet of water, said John Bannen, Fort Kent's director of
Community Development. Police and Border Patrol blocked off
downtown Fort Kent on Thursday morning.

Less than 24 hours earlier about 600 people were forced to
leave the town in a hurry when the river threatened to rise
above a 30-foot (9-metre) dike built to protect the area. The
town is 430 miles north of Boston.

Town and state officials called it the worst flood in 80
years of record keeping.

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"We have never seen anything of this magnitude," Bannen
said, adding that the town is virtually cut off with only one
road open.

The Fort Kent and Van Buren border crossings between the
United States and Canada were also closed after the 78-year-old
steel truss Clair-Fort Kent bridge spanning the St. John River,
was submerged, Lynette Miller, a spokeswoman for the Maine
Emergency Management Agency said.